Love Strikes Thrice

Played Version: 0.1 (Episode 1, (Act 1 Eric Hayes)) on Jan 19. 2026 Summary: The first short release, and so the summary will be too. In Love Strikes Thrice we are going to step into the shoes of not 1, but 3 distinct protagonists, each having 3 LI’s to choose from. There isn’t that much of a main storyline, focus is simply on the characters and how they act and grow with time. A college or post-college slice of life AVN with a mix of romance, grounded comedy and light drama. A basic narrative structure remains in play though, that being a 3-act setup for each protagonist, with the initial act being akin to the traditional “common” route seen in commercial VN’s, where the reader gets to learn who the LI’s are before choosing among them. Act 2 being the character specific romantic content and act 3 being shorter than the first 2 and serving as a send-off. Pros: Lets start out with how LST as the first AVN by a new developer, seems to be planned out and structured as a AVN with a medium scope in mind. The pile of AVN’s that are either abandoned or on life support have been growing faster and faster in the recent 2-3 years and fatigue is setting in for many readers. I think most such projects had developers who didn’t think things through. It was all about working on the next big hit AVN, full length story, 6+ LI’s with extensive optionality. The concept of finishing them however was never anything more than a distant thought. RenOfRome must have taken a reality pill, because starting out with something smaller is the way to go with AVN’s, especially as a solo developer. - Posing and especially facial expressions are done with care. A good impression further enhanced by good framing and use of zoom by the camera. We aren’t explicitly being told things, we are shown in most cases. - A general comment that I frequently think I use would be that characters feel real in LST. The way they communicate, the changing character dynamics based on who is present. Use of internal thoughts are fairly limited and that is a good thing. - The social web intrigues me. We haven’t meet everyone just yet, but almost everyone seems to know one another in some way. Classmates, colleagues, neighbors, clients, former roommates, you name it. - I don’t recall noticing any flaws with grammar, no weird phrasing of words and other issues with the technical side of the writing. Mehs and hit/miss: The 3-protagonist structure. I personally would like to put it in Pros, as it is highly innovative and could breathe some new life into the AVN sphere, which I feel have gotten stale. But so far, I have only been in the shoes of 1 player character, so I can’t say anything for certain just yet. I have seen comments expressing a bit of doubt elsewhere, so I will assume that even if it turns out to work well for me, it might not for others. - For most AVN’s I tend to have 1-3 comments about the characters themselves (personality), their story, looks, growth, etc. However, due to the narrative structure, I simply don’t know enough about 1,5 of the PC’s and 5 of the LI’s to make a decidedly positive comment about them. It’s remains possible that I won’t connect well with some of them. But like I wrote in the Pros, at least people feel real. Cons: I don’t think I perceived anything worth considering a genuine con. I suppose I would prefer just a little more content for a first release, but it did do the job. And it looks like the next couple releases will be out in quick succession, as the writing is way ahead of the rest of the development process. Rating explanation: Hmmm. I think I will keep up my recently established “tradition” of cautiously giving 5 stars to new good looking HS based projects. I rate based on what is actually there and not the future potential. But as there isn’t much content just yet, it’s not going to take a lot of wavering to reduce a 5-star rating down into 4 stars. The biggest threat I see towards a 5-star rating for LST is if the 3-protagonist gamble does end up causing immersion and pacing problems for most readers. But until we see the how the switching gets handled, the rating remains a 5.